Coastal hazards assessment associated with sea level rise and storms along the Whatcom County, Northwest Washington State coast

This product contains several datasets that map exposure to future forecasted hazards related to coastal flooding and extreme wave heights accounting for sea level rise (SLR) and climate change along the Whatcom County coast of northwestern Washington State in the Salish Sea. The SLR scenarios encompass a plausible range of projections by 2100 based on the best available science and storms account for dynamically downscaled projections of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) CM3 model forecast of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5-GFDL-CM3) shown to capture important variability in climate of the Pacific Northwest. Data products provided as part of this data release include flood extents, water levels, water depths, flood duration and flow velocities of floods associated with 72 flood hazard scenarios. These scenarios reflect 9 sea level positions ranging between 0 and 5 m and 8 storm recurrence events ranging from daily to the 100-year storm event and account for the combined effects of astronomic tides, storm surge, waves, and stream flows to coastal flooding for the period 2015-2100. The spatial distribution of significant wave heights is also provided for the 8 extreme recurrence events under existing sea level. The validation data used to quantify model performance in the form of measured and simulated storm inundation for a recent flood of record in the study domain at Birch Bay on December 20, 2018 is served. Lastly the model input code, elevation data and necessary boundary conditions are included.